Prevalence of Psychosomatic Illness in Greece: Two Nation-Wide Cross-Sectional Studies in 1978–79 and 1984

Abstract

The main body of knowledge on the epidemiology of psychosomatic diseases is drawn from patient studies. There are data, however, from socio-psychiatric community home-surveys on the prevalence of self-reported symptoms of anxiety, depression and psychosomatic manifestations in the general population. The latter do not constitute specific nosologic entities, but are either expressions of various body ailments with organic or not known causes or are somatic disorders associated with psychic factors e.g. bronchial asthma, peptic ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome. Only a limited number of surveys have reported the prevalence of specific psychosomatic illness among general population samples1–6.